Oceanfront
by m00shrum
Summary: After an encounter with a nameless new enemy, Kento and Cye set out to defeat him. On their journey, they discover the unique bond between Hardrock and Torrent. But they still have their own personal dispute to settle. Onesided slash.


OCEANFRONT: Part I

_"Damn it! Where is Cye when we need him?"_

_"I can't heal him when he's moving like that! Ryo, hold him still!"_

_"Can't you see I'm trying?"_

Everything around him went completely numb. He felt another wave of nausea and cried out. There were hands on his arms and shoulders, but he couldn't see whose they were. They felt like sticky nodes being pressed into him.

_"There he is! Cye!"_

_"Sorry, guys! I felt there was something—Oh! What happened?"_

The last thing he remembered was something that felt oddly like cool water flowing through his veins. He sighed and surrendered to the sensation. At least it took away the nausea, leaving only the dull pain. Then, there was a flash of light.

- - -

Kento woke up, expecting to find himself in the forest, surrounded by Ryo, Sage, and Rowen. Instead, he found himself on a twin-sized bed. He sat up and touched the side of his chest. The wound and whatever pain existed were gone. Had it all been just a dream? But why would he be in someone else's room?

The room had been neatly arranged to be a study, but not neatly enough to hide the coziness of a bedroom. An advanced biology textbook lay open on the desk, several comic books were scattered on the carpet, and a pair of jeans were draped over the back of the chair. Otherwise, everything else remained in place. Kento looked down on the bed. A stuffed clown fish stared back at him.

He nearly jumped off the bed in shock, but it wasn't because of the fish. Cye. He was in Cye's room. And the fish had been a present to Cye when Kento won it three years ago at an amusement park.

The guy still kept this thing on his bed?

Kento found it disturbing, especially after what happened last month, when Cye told him that he had feelings for him. No, not ordinary friendly feelings, but the kind parents would try to ignore and little kids would feel squeamish about. Just imagining doing _that_ with his friend—well, not so much his friend anymore—made Kento rather… uncomfortable.

The nausea was coming back. Everything in here looked like Cye, smelled like Cye, felt like Cye. Kento stumbled out of the room and into the hall. The sound of jingling keys told him that someone had just came in through the front door. He tried to run back into the room, but it was too late.

"Kento? Is that you out of bed?" Damn Cye and his good hearing. "I bought some snacks from the supermarket, in case you're too hungry to wait for real food."

Food. It suddenly sounded foreign to him, but Kento came out of hiding anyway. Cye was going through his shopping list very slowly, checking off the bought items with a pen. "Um, hi," Kento greeted awkwardly. The last time they spoke or even looked at each other had been a while ago.

Cye looked up and smiled. "Why, good morning, sunshine. The food's in that bag on the table. Want me to make pancakes for you?"

"No," said Kento. He stood there stiffly, not even bothering to look through the bag.

"What's wrong with you today? 'The day Kento Rei Fuan isn't hungry is the day the world is going to end.' Remember Sage's prophecy?"

Kento decided not to answer.

"Soon, I'm going to be the only person talking," said Cye with a sigh, pulling out homemade pancake mix from the cabinet. "Now, it's the four silent ones and the chatterbox, with an occasional loud yawn from Rowen and the sound of Ryo's wordless grunts in battle. It's a lonely, lonely world."

"I said I didn't want pancakes," said Kento. "Now, will you stop acting like everything's the same around here?"

Cye frowned and took out a bowl for the mix. "What are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about!"

For a moment, Cye looked completely blank. Then, he gently placed the bowl back on the shelf. "Kento, I thought that was over," he said. "It's been a whole month. I said I was sorry. Just let it go, okay? I already did."

"And just how am I supposed to do that?" Kento retorted. "You expect me to just stand here calmly and talk as if nothing happened when my friend is thinking about… about… Anyway, it's _you_ who's been avoiding me this whole month!"

"I've been studying for final exams every day for these past few weeks," Cye explained. "I still have a biology final tomorrow and I'm missing the review session today just to be here with you. And I had to run away in the middle of class yesterday when I felt you guys calling me. How can you say I've been avoiding you?"

Kento backed away slightly, despite how calm and unthreatening Cye sounded. He felt his cheeks burning, less with anger and more with embarrassment. "Sorry," he muttered. "I guess I'm still a little edgy about it. What happened yesterday anyway?"

"Well, from what Sage told me, you wanted to have a picnic right in the middle of the forest," said Cye. "Then, you guys decided to rest in the same spot after having lunch—"

"Yeah, I remember that."

"—and the next thing Sage knew, you were being attacked by an invisible enemy."

Kento saw a flash of brown armor in his mind. "But he wasn't invisible!" he said. "I remember now! I tried to call up my armor, but for some reason, I couldn't. Then, I was being pinned to the grass by this brown warrior and the others were in full armor, but they kept yelling and telling me to stop struggling because there was no one there."

"They believe you now," said Cye. "That hole in your chest was quite real. Sage tried to heal you, but you were struggling too much. Of course, he eventually succeeded." Cye pointed to the spot on Kento's chest where the wound had once been, dangerously close to his heart. "He did a good job of it too."

Suddenly, Kento felt very exposed. "Where are the others now? Why am I here?"

"The others are at Mia's place, trying to figure out who attacked you. You're here because Sage wanted to make sure you healed completely, and my apartment was the closest. What I'm wondering is why the others didn't see the warrior and why he left before killing you."

"Oh," said Kento. He wasn't sure what else he could say. "So, um, how are you going to make up the class you missed?"

"A nice girl in my class let me borrow her notes," said Cye. "Are you sure you don't want pancakes?"

"Actually, I do," Kento replied. "A nice girl, eh?"

Cye glared at him. "Drop it, okay? I don't want to talk about it."

"I have no idea what you're—Oh, you meant _that_." Kento grinned, taking advantage of the situation. "So, who's being edgy now?"

- - -

It was almost ten in the evening, and Mia still hadn't left her computer since that morning, except for lunch and dinner. The sound of her rapid typing could be heard, even two rooms away. Kento leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes.

"I think I might know what that thing was," said Rowen, breaking the silence.

Sage lowered his teacup and Ryo turned down the television volume. Kento kept his eyes closed, but he was listening.

"We already know that it was after Kento and only Kento could see it," Rowen continued. "But what if it's not a separate entity but actually a part of Hardrock itself? That would explain why Kento was unable to call his armor, even before he fell."

"But why would Kento's armor attack its own bearer?" asked Ryo.

"Where's Cye?" said Sage suddenly.

"Upstairs, studying for his biology exam," said Rowen. "Why?"

Sage shook his head. "Never mind."

"Kento, what do _you_ think?" said Ryo. "This is about you and you haven't said anything."

Kento sighed, propping his feet on the tea table. "I don't know," he said. "My first reaction was to fight whoever it was, but now that it's over, I don't have this urge to seek him out and kill him. Instead, I just never want to see him again. As much as I hate to admit it, that's probably not my usual way of settling things. Maybe Rowen's right about this guy being a part of me."

"Hey, guys! I'm ready to leave." It was Cye at the bottom of the stairs, with his backpack and biology textbook. "Kento, you probably want to stay here, but if not, I'll be glad to let you stay another night at my place."

"No thanks, buddy," said Kento. "I'm staying here, where it's, you know, _safe_."

Cye looked at him gravely for a moment before slinging his bag over his shoulder. "Fine," he said in a soft, almost indignant voice, before walking out of the house and closing the door firmly behind him.

"What's wrong with him?" said Ryo. "Is he really that unprepared for his test? He didn't even say goodbye."

No one answered. Nothing could be heard except for the sound of Mia's typing and the low blaze of the television. Kento bit his lip and stared at his hands for one minute, two minutes, three minutes, before he realized the guys were all staring at him.

"What happened, Kento?" Rowen finally asked.

"It's not your business," said Kento before he could stop himself.

"It _is_ our business if we can feel it," said Rowen. "It's been going on for a while. Something is wrong with you, Kento, and it isn't just your armor."

"_Me_?" Kento cried. "Something's wrong with _him_, you mean! Why don't you ask _him_?"

Sage raised his eyebrows. "Cye? Unfortunately, he's not here."

Suddenly, Mia called from inside her study. "Come here! I think I found something that might explain what happened!"

The four of them quickly gathered around her computer.

"Well, there aren't any images of the mysterious warrior, but I will try to explain," said Mia. "It says here that all the armors are bonded with each other, not only as a whole, but as individual pairs. However, there are ten other armors that appear only when there is a significant change between the bond of two of your armors, one for each pair. I couldn't understand this at first, but I think I do now.

"Kento, the link between your armor of Hardrock and another one of the armors is somehow different from before. I don't know the exact reason for the change, but I'm almost certain that other armor is that of the Torrent. There is no other way to explain why you were the only one who saw this new armor. Cye was the only other person who wasn't there when you saw it, so it must be Torrent."

"But is this a separate armor?" asked Rowen. "Or is it created by some combined power of Hardrock and Torrent?"

"And why would it be _attacking_ Kento?" Ryo added.

Mia shook her head. "I honestly don't know," she said. "Kento, this could be something you want to find out more about or leave alone, but perhaps you won't be left with a choice. It would be very dangerous, especially since you were not able to call your armor. And Cye, you should probably go with—where's Cye?"

"He has a biology final exam tomorrow," said Sage. "He went home."

"Oh." For a moment, Mia looked surprised. Then, she laughed. "I'm sorry. It's just that sometimes I forget you boys have other responsibilities. I hope he does well on that exam. It's terrible to have all this interfere with your everyday lives."

And it's even more terrible to have my everyday life interfere with all this, Kento thought.

- - -

He left alone early the next morning, before anyone else woke up, carrying only a few bottles of soda, a thermos of hot water, and several packs of cup noodles. The five o'clock train to Shinjuku had just rolled away when he arrived at the train station, so he waited nearly an hour for the next one.

The train stopped at Shinjuku a little past seven. The cab driver could only take him so far out of the city, so for the entire rest of the way, Kento walked. By the time he got to the place they had their little picnic, it was already noon. He prepared himself a cup of instant noodles and lay down on the grass, never completely dropping his guard.

A rustling sound came from the bushes next to him, but it was only a rabbit. After his noodles were ready, Kento suddenly realized he hadn't brought chopsticks with him. He shrugged and tipped the noodles into his mouth. The soup was just the right temperature, but the noodles were still slightly hard. Within minutes, Kento had finished the entire cup.

He washed his face in the nearby stream and climbed a few trees before dozing off under a large tree.

The sun was just beginning to set when he woke up. He climbed up the nearest cliff and watched as the blazing white became a bright yellow, then a hue of orange, and finally a thin red line on the horizon against the dark sky.

When he returned to where he left his backpack, he found that the water in his thermos was no longer warm. He pulled out another pack of cup noodles and began to break of pieces of dry noodles, stuffing them into this mouth. It didn't taste so bad. After all, it was better than nothing.

The sound of a branch cracking could be heard in the distance. Kento put away what was left of his noodles and stood up, listening for any more noises. The wind picked up the fallen blossoms on the ground and carried them around in a melodic dance. Then, Kento heard it again. Footsteps.

"Show yourself!" he yelled.

"It's only me," a familiar voice said. Cye appeared, holding a bag of his own. "I thought you might be here. The others told me what happened."

Kento wasn't sure whether to be relieved or horrified.

"Are you hungry? I brought some food I made for dinner. It's cold now, but I'm sure that beats whatever junk you brought with you." Cye smiled a little to himself. "If it isn't enough, there's still some stuff on Mia's car, but you'll have to walk a bit."

"Walk?" said Kento. "Hah! I walked here from Shinjuku. What did you bring?"

"Somehow, I'm not surprised," said Cye. He took out a large bowl covered in several layers of plastic wrap. "Fried rice with pork and vegetables. It's not very special, but I didn't have much time. Here, have some first."

"Thanks." Kento gratefully took the bowl and chopsticks. Thank goodness, Cye remembered to bring chopsticks.

Cye pursed his lips. "I guess it's just the two of us on this mission."

"Yeah," said Kento, looking down morosely at his food as he ate, despite how good it tasted. "I guess it is."

The sky was now completely dark. Wolves howled in the distance. As Cye watched Kento gulp down his dinner, he had the strangest certainty that whatever they were looking for would make its appearance tonight.


End file.
